How many of us Indians haven't dreamt of a snowfall? We've seen snow in so many movies now; it could only a heartless person who wouldn't want to experience it. Our movies have epitomized snowfall as a symbol of romance. For the westerners, I suppose it's nothing more than a weather condition, something they have to face (or tolerate!) every winter.

And my first snow experience was just so romantic. I was all alone, at Montreal airport, late February 2002. My heart was beating fast and I just didn't feel like taking the bus to Ottawa. Surrounded by hundreds of people but nobody with whom I could share my joy. It was below freezing, and yet I just stood there, amazed by this wonder of nature. It was only later, Christmas 2003, in Raleigh, when the true romantic sparkle of snow lit up a dull and drab evening. Then I was married.

And all this I remembered after a full 2 years, when I was talking to Shikha yesterday. How excited she sounded on the phone, about her first snowfall. Your first snowfall. Do you remember it? Memories flashed before my eyes. I relived some of the wonderful moments of my life. Thank you Shikha and Rajat (married in May 2005, live in DC area in USA). My blessings are always with you.

Cheers
Mayur Poddar

What's up with this wierdo topic? Oh. So I was out looking for a life insurance cover for my dad, and that's how I ended up educating myself on these. Insurance and Investment. I did plenty on online research, and visited 3 banks. At the end of the day, I did not have a policy, but I did know how to approach this entire twin-issue.

Being Indian, I know that when we spend money, we look for value or returns. Be it food or clothes or a car or your washing machine, we always evaluate if the price is worth the product. Unfortunately, it's not as easy or simple to use this approach for insurance. And for that, you have to understand the concept of insurance. It's not for me to give a lecture on insurance, you could google it up. But the one thing I could say to all my friends and family is - go out and get a life insurance policy - it won't hurt.

The real reason for writing on this topic was highlight that these insurance and investment companies are playing gimmicks with gullible people. The newest policy on the block is ULIP - Unit Linked Insurance Plan, and you go to any insurance-cum-investment company or bank and they first want to sell you a ULIP, to the extent of discouraging all other policies. The concept behind ULIP - you give them money, they invest some of it in equity (stocks) or debt (bonds) markets, give you some of the returns and keep some for themselves. The big point they don't say loudly is "nothing is guaranteed". They also keep some of your money for themselves, by way of administrative charges, this and that and what not. And hey! It's also insurance. This primarily addresses the Indian mindset - the big returns. Yeah. I've never had to deal with such complications. They make it look very attractive, but very complicated, so you'll fall for it without understanding the intricacies and fine details. Who's the biggest gainer? If you think it's you, think again.

From my little education about insurance and my little experience, I've come to the conclusion that:

• Insurance and Investment are two completely different things. We should keep them separate, and not put them into one basket.


• It's best to opt for a pure risk-cover insurance policy (also called "Term" policy)


• Stay away from ULIP, it could get much too stressful


• Term policies are cheap, and provide all the financial cover you could want


• There are other policies that promise money back, again it gets close to mixing insurance and investment


• There's no returns on term policy - this may discourage many of us, but it's a better deal because
  
  
  
  1. It's cheap (think like Rs.600 per month for a Rs.20 lakh cover)
  
  
  2. That's less than your spending when you go to a movie with your family
  
  
  3. There's no headaches for you -
     
     
     
     • Since there's no returns, you won't worry about them
     
     
     • Link it to your bank account and forget about it
     
     
  
  
  4. There's no hidden costs
  
  


• If you have the money to invest, invest it yourself, or find somebody who knows the markets and take their help, or find an investment banker

My sincere request is, if you don't already have one, go out and get a life insurance policy - pure risk cover. Take an "Accidental Death" cover in addition to it. And take it for the longest term (number of years) the insurer has to offer - the longer the better. And preferably go to LIC or SBI, our homegrown people have the cheapest and best to offer - I checked that out myself. Some of the private insurers (like Tata-AIG, ICICI) will rip you off. And if you want any other information, I'd be more than willing to help.

Cheers
Mayur Poddar

Ok. So it's not a library. But it looks that way to me! It's been so many years since I had these many books for myself. I just went all out and spent a lot of money. It's that feeling from within ... "Yes, I want to read this" ... it's never been there before. And now that I feel this way, why shouldn't I !

There was this book fair and I went and bought all these books. Mostly economics and non-fiction.

Title	Author	Status
India Unbound	Gurcharan Das	Reading
India Untouched	Abraham M George	Unread
Head, Neck & Shoulder Massage	Eilan Bentley	Reading
Blink	Malcolm Gladwell	Unread
Freakonomics	Steven D Levitt, Stephen J Dubner	Unread
Guns, Germs And Steel	Jared Diamond	Unread
How We Die	Sherwin B Nuland	Unread
I'm Ok - You're Ok	Thomas A Harris	Unread
The Driving Force	Michale Crawford, David Marsh	Unread
The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol I	Feynman, Leighton, Sands	Unread
The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol II	Feynman, Leighton, Sands	Unread
The Wisdom Paradox	Elkhonon Goldberg	Unread
The Zahir	Paulo Coelho	Unread

I've added a page dedicated to the books I have, and I'll update the list regularly. The list is visible from "My Books" under Links on the right.

There's this one book on head/neck/shoulder massage. Now don't get ideas. I'll try it on myself first, before I can reach for anybody else. It's quite a thing. I read a few pages, and I think I can do it well, probably even be good at it. It's based on traditional healing techniques of accupressure.

I already feel very proud to be able to help people suffering from acute headaches and general muscular pain in any part of the body, thanks to the mini-course in accupressure that I attended recently. The course was conducted by Dr.Jha, he's a very famous accupressurist, working out of this home in Marathalli. He works at HAL for a full time job, and sees at least 50 patients everyday, from 4pm to 9pm, spending anything between 1 minute to 10 minutes with each patient. And I've not known of anybody who's gone back home dissatisfied. Going further, I will encourage everybody to experience accupressure, and those who will understand that allopathic medicines are not the best method to treat ailments, should learn the basics of accupressure to help themselves and others. Nothing gives more happiness than being able to help others, especially when they are in pain.

So, if I can amalgamate the techniques of accupressure and head/neck/shoulder massage, it could turn out to be a great experience, not just for those whom I would be able to help, but for myself as well.

Cheers
Mayur Poddar

Besides the fabulous weather and the super Barista cappuccino, last Sunday offered a meeting with friends from school. National Public School was good. And it was even better to meet all these fine people after a long time. Yes, these were people who tolerated me 10 years back. And they still could.

Gautam was in town, after completing his degree in aviation and aerospace law from Canada. The next time the airline loses your bags or gives you any such trouble, you know whom to call. He called me and got me to get everyone together. It was upon me to organize this meet. After trying to match availability of those I knew are in Bangalore, and those flying in from foreign, Sunday morning was the best I could do.

Some locals couldn't come, and they had their own good reasons. Those who did meet up were Gautam Acharya, Brinda Ganesh, Rajesh Radhakrishnan, Madhukiran P, Vinay Pai and his wife, and myself. My hearty congratulations to Brinda (she's getting married on 25-Dec) and Rajesh (married on 15-Dec).

I should write about the reasons some of the locals couldn't come:

• Divya - not in town


• Parthiv - guests at home


• Naveen Koka
  
  
  
  1. Not enough inspiration in the absence of Karishma
  
  
  2. Wants to spend some time with his wife (he put it that way)
  
  
  3. Fear of Gautam attacking his wife
  
  
  4. Inability to deal with Gautam in general
  
  

From what I gathered, Koka either has some very big misunderstanding about Gautam, or he just wants to keep his wife away from his school-mates. I mean, with his reasons, I'd say he didn't come (and not he couldn't come). Comon Koka, we're not all that bad, and there's nothing to be scared of now.

Gautam is such a handy guy, he was carrying pictures from school era, and it was such a delight to see those. Thank you Gautam. I've dug out some school pictures from the dark corners of my desk, and I'll scan them and put them up here.

And 3-cheers to NPS.

Cheers Cheers Cheers
Mayur Poddar

The apartment I live in has been attacked by water seepage in the basement. This happened after the super rainfall in Bangalore in October-November. I suppose the seepage is giving us between 3 to 10 litres per hour of water, from the basement wall and floor, for the last 1 month. The seepage itself is not so harmful, but the constant water flow on the thin top layer of concrete has eroded it in several places and that may well take up a big chunk of the money that will be spent in controlling or fixing this situation. The disturbing part is that the owners association has done little to stop the secondary damage that this seepage has been inflicting. I wrote a detailed article on this issue and sent it to the owners association. Based on this, several people have woken up to the problem and we may see some action soon.

Addressing the water seepage problem in the basement of Vars All Seasons

We are aware that there has been excessive rainfall in the recent months. This is the cause of the seepage in the basement. However, it is important that we ascertain the physical cause of the seepage before we take any measures to stop the same. There is also a need to ascertain the extent of current damage, and also any foreseeable sustained measures that we may have to take.

Facts:

• There are small fissures on the floor, through which the water flow can be observed.
• Large flow of water was noticed from the side wall of the inside of the pit of the unfinished bore well
• There are no visible cracks in the wall, however, hammering the wall in a few places close to the floor increased the seepage from these points
• There is a white substance being released with the water, the substance is crystalline where it is stuck to the wall and powdery where the seepage is from the floor.
• So far, about 30+ Sq. Ft. of the cement floor of the basement is visibly damaged, this area is evidently damaged due to the constant flow of water over it and due to its seemingly thin thickness. This area is at least 20 feet away from the seepage, so this is secondary damage. If the seepage had been addressed immediately upon notice, this damage could have been avoided or controlled.

After studying material available on the internet, I can conclude the following points:

A very heavy rain will raise ground water level. Construction in surrounding areas can change groundwater flows. When water accumulates around the foundation, hydrostatic pressure builds up and causes the basement to leak, and this we commonly refer to as seepage. The presence of clay-rich soil around the basement will heighten the possibility of seepage for a prolonged period; until such time that enough water has seeped through so the hydrostatic pressure is not sufficient to cause any more seepage.

Water penetrates into the pores in concrete and dissolves the salts and components of water proofing compounds. The seeping water evaporates, leaving on the surface lime that reacts with carbon dioxide in the air and forms limestone. This is the white crystalline/powdery substance on the surface of the basement wall and floor. This effect is known as efflorescence. Efflorescence will stop once the supply of water ceases, or the quantity of soluble salt materials in the bricks or mortar becomes exhausted. There is no direct structural damage caused by efflorescence itself.

The seepage occurs since there was no other place for the water to run off, except the pores in concrete wall and floor of the basement. If there is seepage in the basement, there is no better way to overcome the seepage than to give the water a path to flow out. Trying to stop the seepage by using water proofing compounds will only provide temporary relief, as hydrostatic pressure will continue to build and this can cause substantial damage to the concrete structure itself. It is essential that the water be drained as quickly as possible.

An example of a planned approach to letting the water out is the small hammerings that were effected on the basement wall. It has been noticed that the subsequent outflow of water from these damaged portions was much larger than the other portions of the wall. Similar action on larger part of the wall and the floor will allow faster outflow of the water. The drained water should be allowed to flow to the nearest drainage.

As a preventive measure for the future, considerable effort should be put into reducing the collection of ground water around the basement. This can be achieved by studying the collection and flow or rain water and surface water around the structure. Proper drainage systems should be present around the structure so as to drain away any excessive rain water instead of letting it seep into the ground. Any water outlets that are directed directly onto the surface around the basement should be directed into a drain. If the surroundings of the structure are uneven or sloping, then measures should be taken to divert the water that flows down the slope, around the structure, and not directly near it.

As a permanent measure, a mini-sump that is below the basement floor level should be constructed, with a submersible water pump. This sump should be in a corner, with sides walls that allow run-off into the sump. Small drainage paths should be constructed all along the basement walls, and these paths should terminate in the sump.

Mayur Poddar
408, Vars All Seasons
07-Dec-005

References:
http://web.utk.edu/~btschant/wet.htm
http://www.radonseal.com/basement-waterproofing.htm
http://www.misterfixit.com/wetbase.htm